Will’s 10g Caribbean Mangrove Mini Lagoon

[willwoo]

Just setup what will become my Caribbean Mangrove Mini Lagoon biotope tank this past Wednesday 4/9. Starting with 10 lbs live rock from Gulf Live Rock, substrate is about 1.5” Miracle Mud and 2” Arag-Alive. Those super purple and rocks are some rubble I seeded in my reef tank for a few weeks. Currently growing 3 mangrove propagules and a clump of halimeda. Probably will remove a good bit of this rock after the cycle, but 10 lbs was the minimum order.

As for hardware, tank is a 10g Landen AIO. Light is a Kessil A80 set to full daylight, but only running the light a few hours a day for now to avoid algae taking hold. Not planning to use any physical filtering. Have an ATO connected to the same reservoir as my reef tank. Planning to keep this tank real simple.

Not exactly sure what direction I’ll go as far as fish or inverts. The only criterion is that I’m going to limit this tank to only Caribbean species. So that means no stony corals. Open to any suggestions!

 

[willwoo]

A couple of hitchhikers from the live rock. I think the mollusk is a turkey wing clam. I was honestly surprised it survived shipping, but seems to be doing ok so far.

Also noticed this little nem. I fear it may be aiptasia, so once the water stops stinking so bad I’ll probably inject it with kalk.

 

[willwoo]

Decided to build a contraption for one of the mangroves this morning to suspend its roots above the substrate and see if I can encourage downward root growth.

 

[Frigus Reef]

View attachment 99759

Just setup what will become my Caribbean Mangrove Mini Lagoon biotope tank this past Wednesday 4/9. Starting with 10 lbs live rock from Gulf Live Rock, substrate is about 1.5” Miracle Mud and 2” Arag-Alive. Those super purple and rocks are some rubble I seeded in my reef tank for a few weeks. Currently growing 3 mangrove propagules and a clump of halimeda. Probably will remove a good bit of this rock after the cycle, but 10 lbs was the minimum order.

As for hardware, tank is a 10g Landen AIO. Light is a Kessil A80 set to full daylight, but only running the light a few hours a day for now to avoid algae taking hold. Not planning to use any physical filtering. Have an ATO connected to the same reservoir as my reef tank. Planning to keep this tank real simple.

Not exactly sure what direction I’ll go as far as fish or inverts. The only criterion is that I’m going to limit this tank to only Caribbean species. So that means no stony corals. Open to any suggestions!

Chalk Basslets are very fun and Royal Grammas were in all my Caribbean biotopes. Also Jewel Damsels if you want just one fish.

Inverts you could do arrow crabs, or coral banded shrimp. Floridian Ceriths are my favorite cleanup crew and they’re breeding in my tank currently.

Corals I saw diving in Florida were mainly
gorgonians, mushrooms, zoanthids, palythoas. There’s lots of brains too but you could find pacific brains closely related to Caribbean brains as we can’t buy stony corals from the Caribbean

 

[willwoo]

Thanks! I agree a Chalk Basslet could be great. Thinking maybe one of those and a captive bred Gulf Pipefish if I can get my hands on one. Also really want to get a Pederson’s Cleaner Shrimp if I can find one.

I’m headed to the Keys in a couple weeks and going to go out to the reef at Pennekamp and also see if I can get out to some of the seagrass flats in the lower keys for inspiration. Actually thinking about reaching out to FWC before I go to see about what if anything I’m allowed to collect. Would be really cool to bring back some seagrass and see if it takes.

 

[Frigus Reef]

Thanks! I agree a Chalk Basslet could be great. Thinking maybe one of those and a captive bred Gulf Pipefish if I can get my hands on one. Also really want to get a Pederson’s Cleaner Shrimp if I can find one.

I’m headed to the Keys in a couple weeks and going to go out to the reef at Pennekamp and also see if I can get out to some of the seagrass flats in the lower keys for inspiration. Actually thinking about reaching out to FWC before I go to see about what if anything I’m allowed to collect. Would be really cool to bring back some seagrass and see if it takes.

Dude, you can get permits to legally collect! Do you want me to send you the info?

 

[willwoo]

Hell yeah, would love that! Thanks!

 

[willwoo]

Nothing too exciting to report yet except that the cycle is officially complete. Dropped in a couple hermits, a snail, and some baby plate corals (temporarily) just to see how they’d do, and all are thriving. Headed to the Keys tomorrow and hopefully will be able to collect a few things & ship them to myself. Fingers crossed.

 

[willwoo]

 

[willwoo]

Quick update, I was able to collect quite a few really great specimens. These are just a few photos. Among them are at least 2 species of seagrass (one is Thalassia testudinum, the other I thought at first was Syringodium, but it just doesn’t seem quite the same as other specimens I’ve had in the past; maybe Halodule wrightii?), couple species of Caulerpa, a few varieties of Halimeda, mermaid’s fan algae, shaving brush algae, astraea snails, cerith snails, one nerite snail, some blue leg hermits, and a few other things.

Shipping them home in the morning, and super excited to get these into the tank. I will probably end up removing a good bit of rock from the tank to make this work.